Category: Press Releases

2014 was a stellar year for Illyriad. Sure, we struggled with the usual indie team issues like figuring out how particular systems should work or when to release a patch but I’m proud to say that for such a small team, we did really well.

I wanted to put together a list of fantastic events that happened over the year. For more details about all of the updates, expansions, tweaks and fixes that happened over the year, you need to go to the announcements forum, here. Also, keep an eye on the news feed on our website if you ever want to see just how much we have done in a year.

So, to the list. Keep in mind that this is not in order of importance, and there is a lot more to choose from. I decided to go with the items that impacted the game the most. Add in your memories or suggestions for big events in the comments section below!

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Broken Lands launches: We finally opened the Broken Lands, a massive chunk of land due South of Elgea. Players are able to move there, explore, build and take over — if they dare. It’s a pretty dangerous area, marked with unusual land types and many different factions, so don’t take moving to the BL lightly!

Windows 8.1-optimized app is released: Although we had previously released a Windows 8 app, this newer, optimized version was needed. We’ve drawn in a lot of players because of this app, and it has even won awards for SlideDB’s app of the year!

New city graphics options: Players had been staring at the same 4 city types for quite a while, so we thought it’d be a good idea to let them change it up! We added in 34 different styles, each one with a different look for each stage of growth.

The Player Council forms: What better way to attack a project than with the player’s help? To start this experimental player-ran council, we decided to use lore as a topic. Five different players were picked to head five different specialities, from the timeline of the world of Illyriad to how the continents work together. We’ve already released some information and will continue to push out more at the beginning of the year.

SOV for lakes, lochs, tarns: Starving players could finally fish those lakes, lochs and tarns! What better way to give your towns a boost than to shoot them full of yummy essential oils?

Prestige scrolls: Want to sell your prestige for in-game gold? Need to give a buddy the gift of prestige? Can’t think of that perfect gift for your favorite enemy? Worry no more, prestige scrolls are here! They are a physical item that can be “cashed in” for prestige, made by using different materials and the amount of prestige you wish to give.

Player spotlight renewal: Our players are our greatest asset, which is why we decided to restart the player spotlight program. You can always nominate a player for the spotlight by sending an email to community@illyriad.co.uk and include their in-game name and why you think they should be spotlighted!

A big gold exploit closed: Ugh, no one likes exploits, and no one likes the mess they leave. We were hit by a pretty big one in 2014, but luckily we cleaned it up and moved on. Normally we wouldn’t want to remember stories like these but with such numbers, they teach a valuable lesson.

Illy wins some IndieDB awards: IndieDB and SlideDB both gave Illyriad several awards! We won for IndieDB’s Best Grand Strategy of 2014, the Editor’s Choice for Community and the Player’s Choice for Best Grand Strategy app. SlideDB gave us the Player’s Choice award for a Grand Strategy app and the Editor’s Choice for App of the Year!

Private chat: If there’s one thing players love, it’s privacy. They had been asking us for private chat for quite a long time so we finally delivered, and now we’re able to tell players “Take it to private!” if things get out of hand. It’s a wonderful feeling. Not to mention that, now, players can scheme and hatch nefarious plans without having to write an IGM.

It was an awesome year, but we have an even cooler year ahead of us! Thanks again to all of our passionate players who make this game as unique as it is.

Thanks to the fact that our game and community is so awesome, Illyriad has won a few awards! If you are not familiar with IndieDB, it’s a great site that features all sorts of news, updates and communications about the world of indie gaming. It’s been a good site for us and has given us a lot of attention. SlideDB is its sister site that concentrates on mobile gaming.Illyriad is proud to be a member of the DB community, and we’re very happy to say that we won a few awards in their latest yearly round-up!

Awards we won from SlideDB
2014 Winner – Players’ Choice – Grand Strategy App of the Year
2014 2nd Place – Players’ Choice – Overall App of the Year
2014 Winner – Editors’ Choice – Best Community

Indie strategy game, Illyriad, has been named a finalist in the Develop Awards for Online Innovation.

Illyriad has previously been applauded for its depth and richness, which mark it as distinct from the many browser city building and war games on the net, but this is the first major award for which the game has been considered.

Founder James Niesewand commented, “Working on Illyriad every day, the team are obviously aware of the levels on innovation in the game. The subtlety and range of strategies available to players are unique in browser strategy games, the quality of the lore has received a lot of praise, while invisibly, behind the scenes, there is a lot of cutting edge work on server-side technologies. But at heart we’re still a low-profile, Indie development team, so we don’t necessarily expect the world to notice what we’re doing. For this to be acknowledged by an award as prestigious as the Develop Awards, for our work to be considered alongside studios like IO or luminaries like Peter Molyneux, is wonderful. Everyone at Illyriad is honoured by the nomination.”

Illyriad’s development team continue to hone leading-edge, plug-in-free HTML5 innovations. At the front-end, our new world map illuminates both world continents in WebGL https://www.illyriad.co.uk/BrokenLands/Map, and at the back end our use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform allows thousands of concurrent players to interact on a single shard with realtime game state communication via websockets. Our first major content expansion, The Broken Lands, is due later in 2013.

Illyriad, the acclaimed massively-multiplayer online strategy game, launched its 7th server-wide tournament today, entitled Champions Return. During this month-long live event, players will work together with their Alliances to combat the undead hordes and claim Ancient Champions for their armies. Portals have opened across the 37 regions of the map, out of which Ancient Champions will emerge, joining the player’s army who is occupying the site. Players will need to compete with each other to hold the squares, as well as co-ordinate with their Alliance to gain access to the Ancient Champion military units. Alliances with the most Ancient Champion units will win valuable in-game prizes including:

Hundreds of dollars worth of Prestige, in-game currency

An Alliance tournament statue to be placed permanently on the world map in game

Custom-designed, unique medals to be displayed on the player profiles of each member who acquires an Ancient Champion

For EACH REGION (most Champions collected throughout the month):1st Place: 100 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool2nd Place: 50 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool3rd Place: 25 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool

For the OVER ALL winners (most Champions collected in total during the month) also receive the following bonus:1st Place: 3000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool and an Alliance Tournament Statue2nd Place: 1500 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool3rd Place: 750 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool

The tournament will come to a close at midnight on April 30. Full details and rules can be found at the Illyriad official forums.

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Game Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_9zEdFVaAc

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

On the cusp of the game’s third anniversary, Illyriad, the acclaimed HTML5 strategy game, announces its first expansion today. This addition will double the size of the world map, giving players new and old more available land to expand their empire. The expansion will introduce new gameplay choices including interactive NPCfactions and a PVP-protected zone for players who wish to not partake in player verses player combat in their cities. Adding a portion of the Broken Lands map as a PVP-protected zone is an important step for the evolution of the game that allows players more power to truly choose how they want to interact with the world and others around them. With the release of the Broken Lands, NPC factions currently in game, as well as new factions added with the expansion, will become live and interactive. Players and Alliances will take part in story-driven quests that will determine their standings with factions, influencing how they affect the world through combat and trade.

Players will uncover the new continent, The Broken Lands, a war-torn land mass newly discovered to the south of the current continent Elgea. With entirely new factions, NPCs to fight and a unique quest and storyline, The Broken Lands will be a separate area of the game that will build up its own player-driven economy and power structures. After the apocalyptic destruction called The Sundering, The Broken Lands must be rebuilt by new and established players alike who will settle cities on this desolate land.

Key Features Include:

New Broken Lands continent doubles the land mass of the current game

Introduction of a portion of the map as a PVP-protected zone in which player cities cannot be attacked

New and interactive NPC factions

New quests including a 6-month story arc

Fully scroll-able and scale-able fullscreen 3D map created using HTML5 and WebGL

The use of the fullscreen WebGL browser technology enables players to experience the whole world; conveying its profound sense of scale while allowing a new fidelity in interactivity.

Illyriad is free-to-play and the Broken Lands expansion will be available to all players for free. The Broken Lands is set to be released in 2013.

About Illyriad:

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

Illyriad, the acclaimed massively multiplayer online strategy game, launched its 6th server-wide tournament today, entitled Dark Harvest. The tournament marks the celebration of the peaceful druidic Kildarran faction’s “Festival of the Dead” that seeks to honor the lost souls of the dead. In what could only be described as an industrious move, the magical Circle of Five faction have take the opportunity to construct beacons that will attract the wandering souls and harvest them, for unknown purposes.

During this month-long event, players will bind together with their Alliances to compete for control of 37 land squares throughout the expansive world map in order to capture and harvest the souls of the dead. Each week, the 10 “bloodiest” squares, those that have seen the most combat, will be granted a bonus that provides more souls to harvest at that location. Subsequently, the most hotly contested squares will also become the most valuable to hold as the tournament progresses. The Alliances that gather the most souls per region as well as overall will win valuable in-game prizes including:

Hundreds of dollars worth of Prestige, in-game currency

New military units called Skyclad Warriors

A one-of-a-kind tournament sword for use with troops and commanders

An Alliance tournament statue to be placed permanently on the world map in game

Custom-designed, unique medals to be displayed on the player profiles of each member of the winning Alliances

For EACH SQUARE (most souls gathered throughout the month):
1st Place: 40 Skyclad Warriors and a tournament sword to each participating player in that alliance.
2nd Place: 20 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance.
3rd Place: 10 Skyclad Warriors to each participating player in that alliance.

For the OVER ALL winners (most souls gathered in total during the month):
1st Place: 6000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, an Alliance Tournament Statue, and a tournament victor’s Gold Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.
2nd Place: 4000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor’s Silver Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.
3rd Place: 2000 Prestige to the Alliance Prestige pool, and a tournament victor’s Bronze Medal for all participating members of the Alliance.

The tournament will come to a close at midnight on October 31. Full details and rules can be found at the Illyriad official forums.

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About Illyriad:

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer

“Illyriad has a great niche…. There is plenty to do and I would suggest that everyone with a few minutes goes and checks it out.” – Vagary.tv

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

In the largest single release in the game’s history, the game economy of Illyriad, the acclaimed HTML5 massively multiplayer online strategy game, sees a dramatic expansion today, with new commodities, equipment, an expanded gathering system, crafting system and an expanded regional trade system.

The previous 17 resources which could be traded in Illyriad are joined by hundreds of new items, ranging from grapes and wine to rare minerals and magical ingredients. With many commodities available only in specific parts of the game world, and some extremely rare, this opens up the possibility for elaborate player trade and crafting strategies, extending to monopolies and cartels.

“This huge expansion in trade, and the whole crafting system that we are bringing in, opens up new choices for player specialisation. Specialist traders and specialist manufacturers will both have an important place in Illyriad going forward,” explained Illyriad’s founder, James Niesewand. “Illyriad has always been praised for its depth, and this release does add more depth. For example, military players previously had 8 basic troop types to choose from, but with the new equipment produced by crafting there will be thousands of possible troop load-outs, allowing players to customise their soldiers for different missions, terrains and even climates. So, for the military players, yes, there is more depth. But what this update really adds to Illyriad is breadth, allowing players to explore complex trading and manufacturing strategies.”

This update includes:

72 new weapons

53 new armour types

9 new mounts

13 new specialist buildings

More than 50 new special resource types

Dozens of items lootable from animals

187 new technologies to research, ranging from Wine Making, to Faction Markets, to Obsidian Blade

With such a dynamic change to the game, the full impact of the release could take several months to be felt by the players of Illyriad. All of the new buildings, equipment, researches and commodities in the release go live at the end of this week.

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About Illyriad:

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer

“Illyriad has a great niche…. There is plenty to do and I would suggest that everyone with a few minutes goes and checks it out.” – Vagary.tv

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

The new Alliance Medal system allows players to design a deeply customizable award from hundreds of unique pieces that can be combined to create thousands of unique design options. Players can then award the medal to a fellow member of their in-game Alliance to be displayed along with a custom title on the player’s profile page. Medals give Illyriad players an opportunity to grant prizes, awards and inter-alliance rankings for their peers in a meaningful and interactive way. Medals are purchased through a new shared Alliance Prestige Pool system that allows players to donate in-game currency into a shared bank for Alliance use.

A refreshed user interface is also now available in game. The re-designed UI gives a cleaner, more user-friendly visual appearance and adds many usability improvements including: additional navigation options, tabbed sidebar settings, a game-wide search tool, new friends list feature and an interactive lore book within the game.

Video with a walk-through of the UI changes and medal designer is available here: https://youtu.be/q8GWVMmhXGk

Illyriad’s latest update, including these and other features, goes live this weekend.

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About Illyriad:

“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com

“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer

“Illyriad has a great niche…. There is plenty to do and I would suggest that everyone with a few minutes goes and checks it out.” – Vagary.tv

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.

https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk

Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

From today, acclaimed Free-to-Play Strategy game Illyriad will switch from a randomly generated world biology, to an organic and emergent model.

Simplistic random distributions of animals and troops have been replaced with a coherent, logical model, encompassing different animal habitats, breeding, and migration. The mathematics behind the calculations include over 1,500 variables, and the game database tracks thousands of non-player populations, whose numbers and attitudes will be determined by players’ interactions with them.

“The depth of Illyriad has always been important to us, as developers, just as it has been important to our players, and has been noted by the press,” explains Illyriad’s founder, James Niesewand. “So we wanted the non player populations to behave sensibly, and organically, in response to players’ actions. As an example, animal populations in Illyriad have previously appeared randomly. Now, each pack or herd of animals will be tracked in real time, its population increasing over time, and the pack splitting when the population grows to a certain point. Players will be able to dramatically impact the sizes of animal populations, which will have multiple consequences.”

These changes are not only an evolution in the design of strategy games. They are also an important step in the growth of Illyriad itself, a necessary precursor to an overhauled trade and economic system, and further development of the NPC Factions systems, expected later this year.

Illyriad’s latest release, including organic animal populations, and other features, goes live from today.

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About Illyriad:
“An epic RTS but with killer lore and an awesome community.” – Massively.com
“I could tell right away that this game was special.” – ThriftyGamer
“Illyriad has a great niche…. There is plenty to do and I would suggest that everyone with a few minutes goes and checks it out.” – Vagary.tvhttps://www.illyriad.co.uk/press/Reviews

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk
Press assets are available at ftp.illyriad.co.uk , and further assets, quotes, interviews, etc., are available on request.

Illyriad Tournament V in celebration of the game’s 2 year anniversary is now live!

PRESS RELEASE: 23rd FEBRUARY, 2012

Illyriad, the online strategy game, has launched its fifth in-game tournament. The launch of this event coincides with the 2 year anniversary of the game’s first launch date in Alpha. During this in-game event, players will bind together with their Alliances in order to capture and hold territory on 37 land squares spread among the expansive world map. At the end of the tournament, March 21, the total time will be tallied and Alliances ranked based on the total amount of time holding the squares. Competition should be fierce as the potential prizes for winning are quite substantial. The Illyriad development team is proud to team up with sponsors Enjin and Typefrag to provide some amazing prizes that will help foster and grow communities within the game.

Sponsored by:

The first place Alliance will win:

1 year free Ultimate Enjin service package provided by Enjin

This includes:

Enjin guild website, CMS and forum hosting

File storage and gallery for hosting images

Individual user profiles

Membership recruitment system with custom emails

Deep website customization with visual editor

Instant messaging and chat

50 user Mumble server

Custom domain

Premium, fully branded themes

Unlimited site modules

and more!

The first place Alliance will also receive in-game prizes including: an Alliance tournament statue to be placed as a permanent tribute on the world map, 50 Elite Praetorian guards and 50 Scribes of Allembine for each eligible player within the winning Alliance.

The second place Alliance will also receive in-game prizes including: an Alliance tournament statue to be placed as a permanent tribute on the world map, 35 Elite Praetorian guards and 35 Scribes of Allembine for each eligible player within the winning Alliance.

The third place Alliance will also receive in-game prizes including: an Alliance tournament statue to be placed as a permanent tribute on the world map, 20 Elite Praetorian guards and 20 Scribes of Allembine for each eligible player within the winning Alliance.

As well as prizes going to the top 3 overall Alliances, each Alliance that holds an individual map square for the longest period of time over the month will receive: 25 Prestige and 10 Praetorian guards to each eligible player of the square-winning Alliance.

A comment from Enjin on the sponsorship: “Enjin strives to support all games on our social gaming website platform, and we are thrilled to partner with Illyriad for this tournament. We’re excited to provide the Enjin 1 Year Ultimate prize to the winner. Good luck to everyone in the tournament, and may the best win!”

A comment from TypeFrag on the partnership: “With so many providers of Ventrilo servers available, customer service is becoming the critical aspect for success, and therefore a core business differentiator. TypeFrag handles all aspects of voice communication servers from network maintenance to customer support. This support will enable Illyriad Games Ltd to focus on the success of the tournament and growth of their community.”

About Illyriad:

Illyriad is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer strategy game, in which players take control of cities, engaging in city-building, quests, diplomacy, warfare and trade. Developed by London-based Illyriad Games Ltd., Illyriad went live in 2010 and was officially launched on May 16th 2011.https://www.illyriad.co.uk/

About Enjin:

Enjin provides top of the line guild website hosting for over 100,000 guilds across thousands of online games. The fully featured, easy-to-use platform lets you create the perfect, customized website for your guild. Voted best by PC Gamer.https://www.enjin.com/

About TypeFrag:

TypeFrag is the leading provider for voice communication among online gamers. They currently are host to over 50,000 voice servers, servicing millions of social groups, families and guilds worldwide.https://typefrag.com/

For further information, please contact: press@illyriad.co.uk. Screenshots and logos are available via anonymous login FTP at ftp://ftp.illyriad.co.uk . Interviews and further information is available promptly on request. Journalist accounts are available on request for any journalist writing for a major, relevant magazine or website.